Joao Figueira denies assaulting his patients and telling them that he was a ‘wizard’ who would ‘expel the badness in them’.
All the offences are said to have occurred while he worked at the Ultimate Body Clinic, Bath Street, between June 2000 and September 2002.It is alleged that Figueira told five of his victims that their ‘tubes were blocked’ and that they ‘needed to be unblocked so that they could have a fulfilling sex life’.Opening the case before an Assize jury of nine women and three men, Crown Advocate Julian Gollop said: ‘All of the indecent assaults happened in his treatment room at the Ultimate Body Clinic.
But his conduct did not form any part of treatment that was taught to him on specialist courses in the UK.’It’s the Crown’s case that none of his victims consented and there were similarities between the alleged assaults.’Advocate Gollop added that Figueira told three of his patients that he was a wizard or witch and was intending to ‘expel the badness in them’.The first of eight alleged victims gave her evidence yesterday, saying that she went into the clinic for a massage but he ended up touching her breasts.The 35-year-old woman said that Figueira took off her bra during a massage for numbness down the left side of her body.
‘He said that I had a sexy body and that other women would be jealous of me.
I thought that this was a strange thing for him to say, especially as it was my first time with him.The alleged incident happened in June 2000.
Asked by Advocate Dionne Gilbert, defending, why she had taken until this spring to report it to the police, the woman said: ‘I said nothing because I thought that I was the only one.
We were alone in the room and it would have been his word against mine.’But my friend told me of a story in the newspaper about him, and it was then that I decided to tell the police my story.’The trial continues.
